Enterprise Imaging Blog

Collaboration is a key driver of positive change in healthcare. When data and images flow smoothly across departments and specialties, it creates a more holistic view of the patient’s condition. However, collaboration isn’t always easy. Legacy systems and department-specific tools generate data that is hard for others to access, expensive to store and retrieve, and frequently force care providers to find workarounds.

I often find myself in conversations with casual observers of VNA, (not VNA geeks like myself), who have a general notion of the technology, which can be summarized simply as a ‘place where we store our images.' While this is fundamentally true, it’s important to peel back layers of the onion and explore why VNA is such an important place to store ‘things,’ and in the process perhaps explain why the VNA adoption trend continues in full force.

Over the course of the last year, I had the opportunity to co-author a couple of HIMSS & SIIMEnterprise Imaging White Papers. Our team included various end users, industry solution experts, and DICOM/IHE committee members. Together we developed a number of specific use cases and workflows, however, it wasn’t until a recent personal experience, that my eyes were opened to additional use cases that we hadn’t yet thought of. For me, and my wife, a frustrating series of medical events reinforced the need for seamless enterprise imaging and universal image sharing.

Last week, many of the biggest names in medical imaging informatics came together in Portland, Oregon for the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) annual meeting, where they discussed the future of the field. The conference was full of insightful presentations from those on the leading edge of imaging IT.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC), a 600-bed academic medical center, faced the dual challenges of long-term image storage and lack of true disaster recovery for full-fidelity images. With the implementation of Merge interoperability solutions, these important issues were addressed, workflow was improved and CCHMC now plans to further expand its archive beyond radiology and cardiology, across all specialties.

As we head into the New Year, it’s important to proactively consider the changes that are taking place within the healthcare industry. From the Affordable Care Act providing access to millions of previously uninsured Americans to the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 for medical diagnoses reporting, 2014 will bring about some of the most significant challenges within the healthcare market to date. How these challenges are met — or not met — could largely determine which providers are standing tall this time next year.

It’s been happening for a while now – big hospitals gobbling up smaller hospitals. Imaging centers being bought by health systems. The consolidation era is here…and it’s not slowing down any time soon.

Cardiovascular disease accounts for 17 million deaths each year, and is the number one cause of death worldwide. The growth of an aging patient population, combined with the arrival of major healthcare reform, makes it critical for cardiology service providers to embrace new electronic record management and imaging technologies.

According to RadiologyMU.org, radiologists who have attested for Meaningful Use have received approximately $60 million in incentive funds. In spite of this staggering statistic, only 12% of radiologists have attested for Meaningful Use. So where’s the discrepancy?

At the risk of stating the obvious, accountable care organizations (ACOs), at their most fundamental level, are about accountability – holding member physicians, hospitals and other providers accountable for the quality and cost of the care they give their patients. After all, an ACO’s primary mission, when all is said and done, is to improve quality, reduce costs and increase efficiency by coordinating patients’ healthcare needs.

If it’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then medical images are priceless in the swiftly approaching era of value-based healthcare. As Meaningful Use and other regulatory measures take effect, smart providers should be taking steps now, if they haven’t already begun doing so, to implement an enterprise-wide strategy that prioritizes image management.

Don’t underestimate the value of implementing an enterprise-wide imaging strategy, especially when it comes to holding onto your most important stakeholders: your patients. Being able to efficiently store and manage medical images and data doesn’t just help you as the provider; it also helps strengthen your patients’ bonds with your practice.

Our blog covers topics related to medical images, including how to safely and securely archive, manage and share these important pieces of medical information. We also discuss issues related to imaging, such as industry trends, government regulation, reimbursement changes and much more.